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The Canadian Coast Guard icebreaker Martha L. Black moves upriver through a narrow channel of open water in the 2008 file photo. The Martha L. Black will once again lead the way in icebreaking on the St. Lawrence late next week (Recorder and Times file photo).

A deep seasonal freeze and lingering winter will fall to the might of the Canadian Coast Guard Service (CCGS) late next week.

With the St. Lawrence Seaway scheduled to open for cargo ship navigation March 28, the coast guard will deploy two icebreaking vessels into the St. Lawrence River and Lake Ontario beginning next weekend.

That is if scheduling isn’t interrupted by more late winter storms or worsening conditions.

“Leading into (seaway opening) we’re a little behind schedule,” said Rachelle Smith, the regional manager of communications with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

“Obviously, because of the weather, everything has been pushed back a week or so.”

The Martha L. Black and Pierre Radisson icebreakers are scheduled to move through the area starting on March 22. The Martha L. Black is scheduled for March 22 or 23 and the Pierre Radisson for March 25 or 26.

“These dates are kind of moving targets,” said Smith.

St. Lawrence Seaway communications director Andrew Bogora said the March 28 opening is about a week later than the normal opening for the past four or five years, and only once in the past decade has the first day been pushed back temporarily because of abnormally cold weather.

The coast guard will be busy throughout the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway system with the most ice coverage, more than 90 per cent, in more than two decades.

The late March opening is not unusual: the Martha L. Black icebreaker carved a channel past Brockville on exactly the same dates in 2008.
Bogora said the opening date is always set with vessel safety and environmental sustainability as the priorities, and even more so with heavy ice conditions like this winter.

“Our opening date is predicated on the availability of coast guard resources to ensure the safe transit of vessels within our jurisdiction, and the environmental conditions within our watershed,” said Bogora.

The long-range forecast toward the end of the month does not indicate much of a chance of a rapid thaw so conditions will be eyed closely.

“We continue to monitor conditions day by day,” said Bogora of post-icebreaking operations. “We’re looking to the 28th and, as always, keeping a careful eye on all the conditions.”